Compromise and Conceit
Infernal adventuring…
Category: Meat Life
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The picture above[1] shows the latest estimated volume of arctic sea ice in March, 2015. The red line is 2015, and it looks like it is heading below the 2010 maximum. This is a disturbing trend because 2014 had a very high minimum, but the March maximum may well be very low. We know that…
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The recent outbreak of measles in America, and its relationship with the anti-vaccination movement, has led to a lot of online debate. Much of this debate is about how these “anti-science” parents and the movement they listen to is increasing the risk of disease for everyone. While the increase in risk is undoubtedly a real…
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In preparation for a post on the political origins of anti-vaccination ideology, I want to make a point about the way that the ordinary public interact with scientists. My last post on anti-vax and Republicans has been linked to by a climate change blog, and on that blog one of the commenters is making big…
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Strange things are happening in Australian politics at the moment. The Federal government appears to be shooting itself in the foot with rocket launchers, and doing everything it can to become that rarest of entities, a one-term Federal government. There are many examples of the government’s reckless desire to consign itself to the dustbin of…
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Standard economic orthodoxy seems to be that deflation is a terrible thing that all economies should avoid. Most central banks now seem to have an inflation target that is greater than 0%, and move their interest rates to try and keep inflation inside this target; inflation numbers are eagerly anticipated economic indicators, with anything below…
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Many years ago now I lived in Newtown, Sydney, and the areas surrounding it (Stanmore, Marrickville, etc), all of which have a recent history as the home of a large number of Aboriginal people and a bit of a hotbed of street activism (far left and far right), largely probably due to their proximity to…
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This week’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine has a perspective piece by a doctor from Kentucky, describing the changes wrought by Obamacare in its first year. The doctor, Michael Stillman, is writing from a clinic serving a relatively poor area with limited health access: 60% of the doctor’s patients had no health…
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Everyone knows that Obama’s Democrats just got their arses kicked in the mid-terms. The dominant political narrative is that it was a disaster, right? Those stupid Dems, acting on political principle and bringing in a second rate universal healthcare system by running roughshod over the bipartisan Republicans to overrule democracy, no wonder they lost the…
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On the same day as it publishes a review of a “deeply silly and ruinously pricey” steak-and-lobster restaurant, that serves beef at $100/kg (minimum order 600g; “At that price they should lead the damn animal into the restaurant and install it under the table so it can pleasure me while I eat”), the Guardian also…
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Today’s media are breathlessly reporting that the WHO is predicting 5,000 – 10,000 new cases of Ebola virus disease per week by the beginning of December. There is no written documentation on this, but I did find this study in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) from the WHO’s rapid response unit which suggested…
Compromise and Conceit 